"Brigada Eskwela" 2013

The Department of Education (DepEd) will once again conduct its yearly National Maintenance Week or the Brigada Eskwela. It aims to enjoin the whole community to do repairs, maintenance, and clean up of schools prior to the opening of classes. It hopes to make schools ready for the students and teachers, engage the participation of community stakeholders in education, and revive the bayanihan spirit.

Scheduled on 20 to 25 May 2013, this year's Brigada, which is on its tenth year, carries the theme "Isang Dekada ng Bayanihan sa Paaralan."

"[Ang Brigada] ang pinakamahabang pagpapakita ng people power sa Pilipinas," Luistro said, adding that ordinary citizens' participation in the event is proof that heroes still abound.

Undertaken in all public schools every third week of May or two weeks before classes begin, it is participated in by private organizations, individuals, national and local government agencies, local businesses, and international organizations and foundations, among others.

Volunteers paint classrooms, repair furniture, and clean up the school grounds. Materials and supplies are usually donated by the parents or by private businesses and foundations. Luistro pointed out that Brigada Eskwela encourages the public to share their time, strength and resources in kind. "We do not accept cash," he emphasized.

In 2012, Brigada Eskwela pooled more than PhP 1.5 billion-worth of resources-in-kind and man hours by over 6 million volunteers in various parts of the country.

Read More...

Summary only...

Should Death Penalty be Brought Back?

For the past few months, crimes committed in the country have become too brutal and violent. Topping the list are heinous crimes such as rape and murder of children.

Based on data from the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Women's Crisis and Child Protection Center (WCCPC), one child is raped every two hours and 30 minutes in 2011. Based on Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) data, the youngest victim of rape is three years old while majority or 54 percent of the victims are within the ages of 11 to 20 years old.

Only last January 2013, 9-year-old Zosimae Magluyan who went missing on Christmas Day was found dead in Dasmariñas City in Cavite province. She was tightly handcuffed and wrapped with mud all over her body. Preliminary report said that Zosimae was brought into a vacant house, tied down and treated as a sex slave for 12 days by four men, one of them a minor. All suspects have been taken into custody.

The number of reported incest sexual abuses also increased from 514 in 1996 to 1,681 in 2000 (DSWD). The prolonged separation from their wives or absence of mothers in the home has been used as a poor excuse by some fathers to justify their horrific sexual behavior on their daughters.

I, personally, would tend to classify crimes against children as heinous for being grievous, odious and hateful offense. Crimes against children wicked, vicious, perverse and are repugnant to the common standards and norms of decency and morality in a just and civilized society. And I invite anybody who think otherwise to post their reasons here for believing that crimes against children should be treated just like any ordinary crime against an adult.

Because of its nature, crimes against children should be given the maximum sentence and appropriate punishment – death. This is supported by the Retribution theory, which states that, the only punishment that is appropriate for the crime of murder is the death of the murderer. As Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy, puts it, "Whoever has committed a murder must die."

Anti-death advocates will argue that "Death for the Guilty" seriously endangers the life of victims because it encourages criminals to kill in order to eliminate the evidence. Also, empirical evidence shows that death does not reduce the incidence of crime. However, references in other countries, say otherwise.

A just society requires the death penalty for the taking of a life. When someone takes a life, the balance of justice is disturbed. Unless that balance is restored, society succumbs to a rule of violence. Only the taking of the murderer's life restores the balance and allows society to show convincingly that murder is an intolerable crime which will be punished in kind.

Retribution has its basis in religious values, which have historically maintained that it is proper to take an "eye for an eye" and a life for a life.

Although the victim and the victim's family cannot be restored to the status which preceded the murder, at least an execution brings closure to the murderer's crime (and closure to the ordeal for the victim's family) and ensures that the murderer will create no more victims.

The death penalty prevents future murders. Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life.

For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies.

Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty.

Executing the innocent is a rare but acceptable risk of the death penalty. There is no proof that any innocent person has actually been executed since increased safeguards and appeals were added to the Philippine death penalty system when it was adopted in 1996. Even if such executions have occurred, they are very rare. Imprisoning innocent people is also wrong, but we cannot empty the prisons because of that minimal risk. If improvements are needed in the system of representation, or in the use of scientific evidence such as DNA testing, then those reforms should be instituted.

However, the need for reform is not a reason to abolish the death penalty. Besides, many of the claims of innocence by those who have been released from death row are actually based on legal technicalities. Just because someone's conviction is overturned years later and the prosecutor decides not to retry him, does not mean he is actually innocent.

Read More...

Summary only...

Revisiting the "Tacub Massacre"

The Philippine Government in October 2012 signed with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement, a landmark deal that will pave the way for the creation of the Bangsamoro political entity to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

There are very minor but thorny issues left in the annexes that tackle Power-Sharing and Normalization. It is expected that the unresolved issues will be discussed when peace talks resume between the government and the rebel group.

The next question now is what will happen to the crimes that were committed before that has yet to be resolved in the courts. The Maguindanao Massacre has started, yet slowly and the Sabah issue has remained a thorny subject, but way back in 1971 another massacre has not found any kind of justice as of this time – the Tacub Massacre.

To help us get an idea, although it might be tinged with bias, of what transpired in during that year, we are furnishing our readers with an article written by a certain Taher G. Solaiman. Here is the full edited text of that account:

THE TACUB MASSACRE REVISITED

Thirty-five years have passed since the infamous Tacub Massacre on 22 November 1971. Yet, the memory of the barbarous killing of sixty Moro Maranaos that day still remain fresh in the minds of the Bangsamoro people.

Why and how did it happen?

The national election was held on 8 November 1971. But due to the harassment of the dreaded ILAGA, many Moro voters in Mindanao were not able to cast their votes. Many of them were in the evacuation centers then. A special election had to be set on November 22.

The ILAGA Terror Gang

The ILAGA was a terror gang backed by Philippine government officials, both civilian and military. Its members, composed mainly of Ilongos, a tribe in the Visayas Island, were notorious in sowing terror among the Moro populace in Mindanao particularly in the early 70’s. They massacred innocent Moro civilians and looted their properties. Their signature was the severing of the ears of their victims.

Ilaga is a Visayan vernacular that means rat. Some documents would reveal later, however, that ILAGA was actually an acronym for Ilongo Land Grabbers’ Association.

In his Revolt in Mindanao: The Rise of Islam in Philippine Politics, T. J. S. George quoted a confidential 1973 study by a Muslim activist on behalf of a government department, saying that the Ilaga was founded in Cotabato City in September 1970 by Wenceslao de la Serna of Alamada; Esteban Doruelo of Pigkawayan, who was then running for Governor in Cotabato Province; Pacifico de la Serna of Libungan; Nicholas Dequiňa, a former officer of the Philippine Constabulary (PC); Bonifacio Tejada of Mlang; Conrado Lemana of Tulunan and Mayor Jose Escribano of Tacurong.

Some members of the Teduray ethnic group also joined the ILAGA terror gang. Their leader was Feliciano Luces (a. k. a. Kumander Toothpick), an Ilongo protégé of Philippine Constabulary (PC) Captain Tronco who was then a mayoralty candidate in Upi running against Michael "Datu Puti" Sinsuat.

Both in Cotabato and Lanao Provinces, the terror sowed by the ILAGA was at its peak in 1971. In June 19 that year, in what came to have been known later as the Manili Massacre, some seventy Moro – men, women and children – were mercilessly killed by the notorious gangsters, with the backing of the PC, inside a mosque in Manili village in Carmen, Cotabato.

Aboard five trucks, a group of Maranaos went to Magsaysay town in Lanao del Norte to cast their votes.
When they reached Tacub village in Kauswagan town on their way back to the evacuation centers where they were staying, they came upon a checkpoint of the Philippine Army.

On the pretext of searching concealed weapons, the military men manning the checkpoint ordered those aboard the trucks to alight and lie flat on the road, face down. As soon as they were able to comply with the military men's order, the deadly command, "Fire!" was heard.

When the gun smoke cleared, at least 60 bodies, bathed in their own blood, lay sprawled on the ground. While some sources placed the number of those killed as thirty-nine or forty, most Muslim sources claim sixty persons were killed.

After an hour, a group of reporters, who covered the special election, arrived at the site of the tragic incident.

The reporters found a small group of soldiers in the checkpoint. Aside from the soldiers, they saw some civilians, apparently members of the much dreaded ILAGA gang, with white headbands checking the trucks.

T. J. S. George described what the reporters found, thus:

"They saw the small bands of soldiers lounging lazily about their checkpost. But a number of civilians with white headbands were rummaging about, inspecting the trucks – and markedly uninterested in the victims of the shooting who were lying in their own blood, a few of them still alive. An elderly man, badly wounded, prayed as his body twitched in spasms. One of the 'inspectors' asked him to shut up. As the old man went on praying, the man with the headband kicked him -- and there was silence. A bleeding man tried to stand up, uttered an unusual scream, then slumped, head first to the road."

The next morning, the story about the carnage spread throughout the country.

"It became painfully clear that there had been some collusion between the soldiers and the gangsters," as George would put it.

George further explained that "officials searched in vain for a convincing explanation. They faced the unsettling fact that, unlike the Magsaysay tragedy a month earlier, the troops in Tacub had neither the excuse of a siege emergency nor an arguable motive of vengeance. One explanation subsequently offered was that the ambush-killing of troops in Magsaysay in October had generally made soldiers so tense that at the merest suggestion of an attack they pulled the trigger in a reflexive act of self-preservation. But panic hardly justified the lack of attention shown the victims and the accommodation apparently extended to the mysterious civilians in white headbands."

Much as they wanted to, the government officials did not find any excuse for the barbarous act. No amount of explanations could exonerate them from culpability for that heinous crime.

"The fact that a local patrol could make common cause with underworld and mow down a group of unarmed people confirmed the feeling among Muslims that their persecutors enjoyed the support of the establishment," George claimed.

Till this day, the hapless victims of the massacre are still crying for justice.

Read More...

Summary only...

Time for Churches to Pay Taxes?

Some Israelis believed that if there are enough Lapids in the world, the financial environment would have been in a much more stable condition. They are not referring to Philippine Senator Lito Lapid, but to the newly minted Finance Minister Yair Lapid.

Minister Lapid became very popular after opposing the long-standing preferential treatment enjoyed by the religious minority, is moving swiftly to slash state handouts to large families, compel lifelong seminary students to work and join the army, and remove funding for schools that don't teach math, science and English.

Minister Lapid is openly waging a war against the powerful ultra-orthodox Jews. For most of the last three decades, this small religious minority sat in governing coalitions, securing vast budgets for religious schools and automatic exemptions from mandatory military service for tens of thousands of young men in full-time religious studies.

It would have been something to grace and witness Minister Lapid's radical influence extend far from the shores of Israel and plant a seed of hope in the Philippines against the expensive tax incentives that the Roman Catholics are enjoying. It would have been much better if his namesake here, Senator Lito Lapid, will be the one to lead the charge, but I doubt it very much that the lawmaker from Pampanga will be willing to step out from his quiet comfort zone and engage the influential Church in an action-packed gun-battle ala "Leon Guerrero".

One of the things that the country could learn from Minister Lapid is that if the country faced a dire need to infuse cash into its coffer, it need not be force to avail of high-interest bilateral or multilateral loans. It can always improve and refine its tax collection system, including an expansion in the tax imposed on religious groups to cover those that they operate for 'non-religious' purpose such as hospitals, schools, resorts and retirement villas.

Taxing Church activities may be a prickly issue fifty years ago, but I don't think many will not agree to it now. When there was a discussion about bringing Churches under the new Social Security system in the days of US President Franklin Roosevelt, he quickly replied, "But that would be taxing God!" And so it would. But it is clear after the support to the passage of the Reproductive Health Law that those days are behind us.

Public officials around the world are more practical, critical and audacious than ever, and they are desperately looking for new sources of revenue. If countries like Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Britain have step-up efforts to tap into the Church's piggy bank, or simply stop putting money into it, then there is no reason Filipinos cannot amend the 1987 Constitution and do the same.

At present, Church real properties are not subject to realty taxes and this was specified clearly by the Real Property Tax Code. Moreover, all activities of the Church that is designed to either maintain or to further the faith cannot be subject to tax except indirect taxes like VAT – since these were passed on to the buyer and not a tax on the church income itself.

I don’t think that by removing some of these perks, which the Church seems to enjoy so much, there will be a violation in the separation of powers between Church and State. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the Church is equal in power with the government. This led me to conclude that in a rational political system, the government is regarded as the higher authority than the Church (any Church), and therefore can impose its will on it just like what it is doing to everybody else.

I'd like to quote an portions of an article of Red Tani published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer last 15 March 2013,

The Churches in the Philippines is taking for granted the fact that even religious organizations — like all charitable organizations — are regulated. This is what happened in 2004 to the Lung Center of the Philippines.

Like the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the Lung Center is registered as a charitable institution. It is also entitled to tax privileges in exchange for participating in charitable activities—primarily the treatment of patients with lung-related ailments.

But the Quezon City assessor discovered that the Lung Center also operated for profit. Because of this, the assessor taxed both the land and the hospital. The Lung Center made an appeal, claiming that as a charitable institution, it is exempted from paying real property taxes. It appealed to four other courts — and lost. Eventually, it brought the case to the Supreme Court.

Essentially, the Lung Center is saying that although they participate in non-charitable activities, these activities are performed to further their primary goals. And since their primary goals are still charitable in nature, the organization still qualifies as a charitable institution exempted from paying real property taxes. This argument is really stretching it far.

The Supreme Court decided that those parts of the Lung Center leased out for profit are not exempted from taxation. It doesn't matter whether the profits are used to fund the Lung Center’s main goals. The fact that a non-charitable activity was done at all automatically disqualifies a property from tax exemption. In other words, it doesn't matter what the Lung Center uses the money for. The fact that it made money at all is enough to disqualify it from tax exemption.

Just before he died in August 2012, outspoken Cardinal Carlo Martini (a Jesuit who was once considered "Pope material") openly criticized the Catholic Church for its unwillingness to embrace reform, describing it as "200 years behind." "Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty, and the church bureaucracy rises up..." the Cardinal said, adding that the "child sex scandals oblige us to undertake a journey of transformation" — a radical transformation beginning with the Pope and his bishops, Martini declared. Maybe he should have added, "by paying our taxes diligently and properly, we can convince the public that we deserve the trust and respect that they have blindly thrust on us".

Read More...

Summary only...